#TCTC guardian news times web · 750 words
Recently I was featured in two prominent online newspapers. The Times published a short story I wrote for The Times Cheltenham Twitter Competition. Extract from The Times The Guardian wrote about my experiences with energy monitors. Extract from The Guardian What struck me was the very different ways that these "Old Media" approached the "New Media" of the web. I'll state my biases up front. …
Continue reading →dabr mobile php twitter YouTube · 3 comments · 450 words · Viewed ~413 times
I've decided to add a preview of YouTube videos into Dabr, the mobile Twitter service. The code is fairly simple - although I still suck at regular expressions. if (preg_match_all('#youtube.com/watch?v=([_-dw]+)#', $tmp, $matches, PREG_PATTERN_ORDER) > 0) { foreach ($matches[1] as $match) { $images[] = theme('external_link', "http://m.youtube.com/watch?v={$match}", "<img…
Continue reading →blackberry browser opera · 750 words · Viewed ~258 times
(Disclaimer, I work for Vodafone Group who do a lot of work with Opera. These are my personal views.) The regular BlackBerry browser is... how can I put this politely... sub-optimal. For reading mobile-friendly sites it's perfectly adequate - but for anything more complex it tends to choke. Don't get me wrong, it's "good enough" for most basic browsing needs, but a lack of tabs, half-arsed…
Continue reading →design food restaurant · 4 comments · 1,750 words · Viewed ~1,139 times
I'm a huge fan of TasteLondon. Their card gives discounts in hundreds of restaurants around London. It's saved me quite a bit of money and I really recommend the service to anyone who likes eating out. TasteLondon Logo There is a small problem with it, though. The directory of restaurants it covers is a fairly heavy paperback book Rather inconvenient to carry around on the off chance that y…
Continue reading →camera security · 1 comment · 600 words · Viewed ~217 times
Monitoring your home or business used to mean having an array of unsightly camera feeding grainy, washed out pictures into a row of VHS machines. In recent years we've seen the move to digital pictures, infra-red beams for night vision and, most recently, viewing over the Internet. What's the next logical step? Viewing on your mobile, of course! Two British companies have come up with some…
Continue reading →HulloMail spinvox vodafone voicemail · 2 comments · 750 words · Viewed ~1,013 times
(Usual Disclaimer - I work for Vodafone, but I do not speak on their behalf. Other mobile phone providers are available. I know some of the people at SpinVox and I have an account with them. All biases are my own and should be taken into account before you make a decision.) There has been a lot of talk recently about alternate VoiceMail Providers - especially those who transcribe or otherwise…
Continue reading →3d android games linux · 2 comments · 100 words
Feast your eyes on these beauties. Amarillo Roll is a 3D game in the same style as Super Monkey Ball. You tip your phone to move the armadillo around the course. The graphics are stunning. Reminiscent of early Xbox games. The one thing the photos don't do is convey the speed of gameplay - it's fast! The game is a tech demo from Qualcomm. You can download Armadillo Roll directly from the…
Continue reading →android qr code YouTube · 5 comments · 150 words · Viewed ~915 times
I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else. It would appear that the mobile version of YouTube now includes links to QR codes, so you can share the video with your friends. I've only seen this using the Android browser, I'm not sure if it's available on other devices. Browsing http://m.youtube.com/ at the bottom is a new link A link to a QR code Clicking on it takes you to a QR code The QR …
Continue reading →WordPress YouTube · 11 comments · 250 words · Viewed ~848 times
This blog is XHTML 1.0 Strict. Unfortunately, the code produced by YouTube for embeding their videos isn't. Nor is it compatible with the dotMobi WordPress Mobile Pack. This scrap of code is a WordPress Plugin. it allows me to write something like [youtube id="p5ACl4iBGd0"] The code then outputs either the XHTML 1.0 embeding code or the XHML-MP code which links to the mobile version of the…
Continue reading →blackberry twitter · 600 words · Viewed ~241 times
It's been a long time since my last post about Twitter on the BlackBerry. Back then I concluded that Dabr wasn't quite up to snuff - how wrong I was! In the last year it has come on leaps and bounds. I've even contributed a few suggestions and lines of code. Without a doubt, Dabr is the best general mobile web client for Twitter. As my main device is a BlackBerry, I wanted something that…
Continue reading →vote · 16 comments · 450 words · Viewed ~289 times
It has always depressed me how little the British make of elections. We don't have voter registration drive, "Kiss me; I've voted" badges" or much in the way of celebrating our democracy. Perhaps it's our reserved nature. But I think it has a direct effect on the declining number of people voting. We're going to have a General Election within a year - how do we encourage people to register and…
Continue reading →#MMI09 data MDA · 1 comment · 1,400 words
I was deeply honoured to be asked to present the keynote address at the Mobile Data Association's "Monetising The Mobile Internet in Tough Times". I was a last minute stand-in for Henry Stevens of the GSMA. You can download the day's presentations directly, but as slides only tell half the story, I've written a brief commentary to what I was presenting. Naturally a presentation or blog post c…
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